Pragmatics 1

A Yiddish story (Levinson 1983: 68)

A melamed [Hebrew teacher] discovering that he

had left his comfortable slippers back in the house,

sent a student after them with a note for his wife.

The note read: "Send me your slippers with this

boy". When the student asked why he had written

"your" slippers, the melamed answered: "Yold! If I

wrote „my‟ slippers, she would read „my‟ slippers

and would send her slippers. What could I do with

her slippers? So I wrote „your‟ slippers, she'll read

„your‟ slippers and send me mine".

(Rosten, 1968: 443-4)

Albert Einstein was a scientist

I am a scientist

Is a fact: true or false.

Depends on who the speaker, i.e. "I" is.

"I" is a deictic expression.

DEIXIS

Pragmatics - Deixis

Levinson (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chap. 2

Also:

Fillmore (1971) Towards a theory of deixis. The PCCLLU Papers (Department of Linguistics, University of Hawaii), 3.4, 219-41

Lyons, John (1975) Deixis as the Source of Reference. In: Keenan (ed.) Formal Semantics of Natural Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 61- 83

Lyons, John (1977) Deixis and Anaphora. In: T. Meyers (ed.) The Development of Conversation and Discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 88-103

deixis

Ancient Greek

δεῖξις

deîxis

pointing, showing, indicating, displaying,

demonstrating, or referencing

deixis

• refers to the phenomenon wherein

understanding the meaning of certain words

and phrases in an utterance requires contextual

information

• words are deictic if their semantic meaning is

fixed but their denotational meaning varies

depending on time and/or place

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deixis

deixis

is a technical term...for one of the most basic

things we do with utterances...[, namely,]

„pointing‟ via language.Yule (1996: 9)

Deictic

expressions

also: indexicals/indexical signs

grammatical features tied directly to the

circumstances of utterance (Levinson1983: 54)

e.g.

demonstratives (this, that)

1st/2nd person pronouns (I, me, we us, you)

tense (present, past, future)

specific time and place adverbs (now, then, soon, here)

deictic expressions

deictic expressions

• language features that refer to the who, where

and when of language. Words such as “you,

here, now”...describe the speaker's position in

space and time

• words whose "meanings change...depending on

the time or space in which they are uttered"http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/11disc/deixis.html

• expressions whose interpretation depends on the

context, the speaker's intention, and that express

relative distance (Yule 1996: 16)

Interpretation of deictic expressions

• depends on speaker and hearer sharing same

context

• have their most basic use in face-to-face

interaction

• most basic distinction:

proximal terms (near speaker): this, here, now

distal terms (away from speaker): that, there, then

(Yule 19976: 9)

Discourse participants

Speaker Addressee

Other

Distance

proximal

distal

The deictic centre

the speaker‟s location

e.g. now = some point or period in time with the

time of the speaker‟s utterance as it‟s reference

point

Interpretation of deictic expressions

• depends on speaker and hearer sharing same

context

• have their most basic use in face-to-face

interaction

• most basic distinction:

proximal terms (near speaker): this, here, now

distal terms (away from speaker): that, there, then

(Yule 19976: 9)

The deictic centre

the speaker‟s location

e.g. now = some point or period in time with the

time of the speaker‟s utterance as it‟s reference

point

3 main types of deixis

• person:

I, you, jien, int

• spatial/place:

here, there, hawn, hemm

come, go, bring, take, ejja, mur, ġib, ħu

this, that, dan. dak

• temporal/time:

now, then, tomorrow, next week, tense

issa, imbagħad, għada, il-ġimgħa d-dieħla

3 main types of deixis

•person: e.g. I, you

the role of participants in the speech event in which

utterance is delivered

•spatial/place: e.g. here, there, come, go

the encoding of spatial locations relative to the

location of the participants in the speech event

•temporal/time: e.g. now, then, tomorrow, tense

the encoding of temporal points and spans relative

to the time at whcih an utterance was spoken(Levinson 1983: 62)

Other types of deixis

• discourse/text deixis

• empathetic deixis

• social deixis

(Levinson 1983: 62-3)

discourse/text deixis

Some people find it hard t understand. This is

because...

Cruuuunch..this is the noise it made.

moreover, besides, anyway, well

the encoding of reference to portions of the

unfolding disourse in whi the utterance is located(Levinson 1983: 62)

emphatic deixis

Use of deictic expressions to show empathy:

I hate that!

social deixis

honorifics

e.g. tu informal 'you'

Lei formal 'you'

the encoding of social distinctions that are relatve

to participant roles(Levinson 1983: 63)

Honorifics in Japanesesuffixes for addressing or referring to people, e.g. –san, as in Ray-san, Fabri-san.

•San: most common honorific; a title of respect similar to the English Mr, Miss, Mrs, Ms.

•Chan: a diminutive suffix; expresses that the speaker finds a person endearing. Using chan with a superior's name is rude.

•Kun: used by persons of senior status in addressing or referring to those of junior status, or by anyone when addressing or referring to male children or male teenagers.

•Sama: a more respectful version of san; used to refer to people much higher in rank than oneself, toward one's customers, and sometimes toward people one greatly admires.

•Senpai: used to address or refer to one's senior colleagues in a school, company, sports club, or other group.

•Sensei: (literally meaning "former-born") used to refer to or address teachers, doctors, politicians, lawyers, and other authority figures. It is used to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill, and is also applied to novelists, poets, painters, and other artists.

•Shi: is used in formal writing, and sometimes in very formal speech, for referring to a person who is unfamiliar to the speaker, typically a person known through publications whom the speaker has never actually met.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics#Common_honorifics

an aside

Person deixis

person deixis

tripartite system:

speaker = I

addressee = you

other = he, she, it

Status

indicate higher/lower status relation between speaker and

addressee

T/V distinction:

French: du, vous

Italian: tu, Lei

German: du, Sie

Spanish: tú, Usted

honorifics fall under social deixis

Statusspeaker with higher social status, older, more

powerful uses tu, du, etc.

with

addressee of lower social status, younger, less

powerful

speaker with lower social status, younger, less

powerful uses vous, lei, etc.

with

addressee of higher social status, older, more

powerful

Status

Question of what happens when e.g. speaker is

of higher social rank but younger

According to Yule (1996: 11), in Spanish age

wins.

Clusivity

1st person plural: we

grammaticalised in/exclusivity:

inclusive (includes addressee: Me and you and, perhaps others )

exclusive (excludes addressee: me and others but not you)

common feature in Australian and Austraonesian languages;

also found in eastern, southern, and southwestern Asia, America, some creoles

examplesFijian

exclusive keimami

inclusive keda

Fijian: an Austronesian language of the Malayo-

Polynesian family; spoken in Fiji, 450,000 first-

language speakers

examples

Chechan

singular so

exclusive txo

inclusive vai

Chechan: a member of the Northeast Caucasian

language; spoken by more than 1.5 million people,

mostly in Chechnya

examples

Tok Pisin

singular mi

exclusive i-pela

inclusive yu-mi (mi = I, yu = you)/ yu-mi-pela.

Tok Pisin: a creole spoken throughout Papua New

Guinea; an official language of Papua New Guinea;

betwen 5 and 6 million use Tok Pisin to some degree

Mandarin Chinese

exclusive wǒmen

(cmp. singular wǒ „I‟)

inclusive zánmen

examples

Mandarin: a group of related Chinese dialects

spoken across most of northern and south-western

China.

Hadza

inclusive ’one-be’e

(cmp. ono/one- „I‟)

exclusive ’oo-be’e

examples

Hadza: an isolate spoken by fewer than a thousand

Hadza people along the shores of Lake Eyasi in

Tanzania, the last full-time hunter-gatherers in

Africa.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/hadza-map

Malecite-Passamaquoddyverb „have‟

singular n-tíhin (first person prefix n-)

exclusive n-tíhin-èn (first person n- + plural suffix -èn)

inclusive k-tíhin-èn (inclusive prefix k- + plural -èn)

„I/we have it‟

examples

Malecite-Passamaquoddy

Endangered Algonquian language, consisting of

two major dialects: Malecite, mainly spoken in

New Brunswick, Canada, and Passamaquoddy in

Maine, US. Only 1500 speakers of both dialects

altogether.

Spatial deixis

Indication of the relative location of people

and things

spatial deixisBasic distinction in modern English/Maltese:

here, there, hawn, hemm

Indication of movement towards/away from:

old English

hither (to this place), thence (from that place)

Maltese:

’l hawn, ’l hinn (’l hemm)

Japanese – this/that• sore/sono (e.g. that is a student/that student)

that, near addressee

OR something just mentioned or you know about

• are/ano (e.g. that is a student/that student)

that, distant from speaker and addressee

OR something we both know about

• kore/kono (e.g. this is a student/this student)

this, near speaker

Japanese – this/that

x kore x sore

Speaker Addressee

x are

Japanese – this/that

x kore

Speaker Addressee

near speaker, away from addressee

Japanese – this/that

x sore

Speaker Addressee

near addressee, away from speaker

Japanese – this/that

Speaker Addressee

x are

away from speaker, away from addressee

Demonstratives in Samal

Samal are an indigenous ethnic group in the Philippines

4-way distinction

• close to speaker

• close to addressee

• close to audience (members of conversational

group)

• close to persons present but outside of

conversational group that consists of speaker

addreessees and audience(Levinson 1983: 81)

Spatial deixis in verbs

English

come, bring S

in the direction of the speaker

go, take S

away from the speaker

Displacement: come to my office tomorrow

Chinantec – moving/arriving

gwa?LM

arrive at base towards PLA (arrives here)

zya? LM

arrive at base away from PLA (arrives there)

ho? M

move to base towards PLA (come)

PLA place of locutionary act

The Chinantec languages belong to the Chinantecan branch of the Oto-Manguean

family. Tone language spoken in Oaxaca and Veracruz, Mexico. There are about 14

mutually-unintelligible varieties of Chinantec.

Temporal deixis

temporal deixis

depend for their interpretation on knowing the relevant utterance time (Yule 1996: 14)

e.g.

now: time coinciding with speaker utterance

then: past and future time relative to speaker's present time

yesterday, tomorrow, tonight, tomorrow, next year, last month

temporal deixis

tense:

simple present: proximal

I work here

simple past: distal

I worked there

temporal deixis

If I had a yacht,...

use of past because yu do not have a yacht and

having a yacht isa 'distant dream'